


A Cup of Kindness

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bars and Pubs, Fireworks, First Kiss, Gen, M/M, Melancholy, New Years, Pub Crawl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 21:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5602084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a Mycroft/Lestrade New Years story. Like many a New Years story, it's tinged with melancholy, just as is Auld Lang Syne.</p><p>I want to say, in advance, that this presentation of Molly is not "The True Molly," in the sense that I'm writing her from the POV of a man who likes her, knows her flaws, and who does not want to get wrapped up in those flaws. One of the tragedies of writing is learning the hard way that people want to see their beloved characters as they themselves see they see them. I love Molly, and I think she's a brilliant character created by both her writers and Loo Brealey--but part of what makes her brilliant is you can love her to bits and still understand why she's not married, and persistently attracted to the wrong men. It was interesting writing a Lestrade reacting to her with the existential dread we all feel, male or female, when faced with a potential lover who NEEDS too much, and likes him or herself too little. </p><p>I'm not entirely sure he's better off with Mycroft. But he at least gets that mosh-pit rush and a feeling of both companionship and thrilled transgression. </p><p>Happy New Years. May the year be kind to all of us.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cup of Kindness

John and Mary had wanted to make a night of it—New Years Eve. Those two felt like they’d accomplished something in the past year: their daughter growing like a beautiful little dandelion preparing to take over the universe, the clinic doing well, and the two finally finding a balance between the adventures they both loved with Sherlock, and the domestic lives they both needed—and found boring as sin. So they’d roused their friends, and their friends’ friends, and dragged everyone out for a pub-crawl around downtown London, because John was at heart a traditionalist, and if you didn’t do the “private room, dinner reservations” thing he fell back on pub-crawls…and of the two Sherlock was the more likely to show for the pub-crawl.

Lestrade had come along. He’d declined Mary’s less than subtle suggestion he bring either Molly or Donovan as his “plus one,” pointing out the obvious—that they were invited regardless, and that they had their own dates, no matter how unsatisfactory everyone else found those dates to be. Donovan was off after yet another married man—this time a doctor at Barts, thank God, not anyone from the Met. Molly had found yet another ersatz Sherlock, this one erring less on the side of sexy and slim and more on the side of brilliant and abusive.

Lestrade wondered if she would ever realize the portrait her affairs painted of her: easily attracted to danger, hooked on walking headlong into abusive relationships, unwilling to ever ask herself why she kept picking men who literally could not help suggesting that her lack of confidence was entirely justified.

“You’d be good for her,” Mary suggested, jogging the baby and patting her to raise a burp.

“You don’t believe that for a minute.”

She grimaced. “Well…”

“You don’t.”

“No. But if she would love you and you would love her, then you’d be good for her.”

“And your point? So long as Molly’s Molly, she’s not going to love me—unless I turn bastard on her. IN which case she might, possibly, accept me as second choice over Sherlock, and punish us both for it—me for coming up short and her for failing to be worthy of the real thing.” He scowled. “No. Not interested, Mare. By the time we were done with each other?” He shuddered—not an entirely fake gesture. “She’s a sweet girl and a pretty one, and smart, and kind, and I’d rather chain myself to a she-cobra. All a she-cobra would do would be kill me. Molly would destroy me by the time we were done.”

So they’d let him come alone, no plus-one, and he’d regretted it a bit. Sherlock had even brought along a plus-one—that girl Janine, who’d somehow got over hating his guts and become his reliable turn-to when he needed a date.

“What’s on with that?” Molly had asked, forlornly, as she gulped a cider and tried to pretend her date wasn’t down the way chatting up some fresh young thing who was out with her girlfriends. “He fake-proposed to her. Hasn’t she got even a little pride, chasing after him still?”

“People are strange.” He hadn’t pointed out that all these years along and she still moped for the one man in the world who was just not right for her—and substituted men who approached being dangerous. This latest one had a record of “domestics” with the girls he dated. Lestrade had looked him up.

The evening was sweet and wild—a bit damp, a bit “spitty” as his mother had put it. The Met had loaded in police—only his earlier volunteer work in the pre-Christmas build-up, sparing other coppers for their families and religious observances had spared Lestrade a harder effort to recruit him for foot patrol. Yes, it was below his rank, but for big events the need outweighed tact, and hints were dropped. After all, it wasn’t like they’d turn down a DCI, after all…

John and Mary’s party moved along, pub after pub, just one more little mob swallowed live by the bigger mob. Lestrade found himself fading further and further back, distancing himself, traveling with them, but not of them.

“Oi, boss,” Donovan had bawled in his ear at one stop. “Wha’s matter, eh? Party—an’ you? Supposed to be the life of the party, eh, mon?” Her grandfather and grandmother had raised her, while her mum worked as a nurse at an old age home. They were first generation, from Jamaica. Donovan had no accent, normally—no more than did her mum, who’d been born and raised in London. But rarely, ever so rarely it slipped out. Just a touch of rum to brighten up an English winter with a trace of the tropics…

She tugged his elbow. “Come dance, boss.”

He’d easily shrugged free, grinning and shaking his head.

“Aw, mon—not like you need to be ashamed to shake it,” she’d said, pragmatic and teasing. “Kept fit, you.”

“Go on with you,” he’d said. “Dance wi’ your own date, woman. Chase after me and we’ve got to sort it in the morning, and none of us would be happy. No way to start a new year.”

She’d laughed, and shaken a head cascading with curls, and then disappeared to find the bastard she was seeing. He wished her well of him. He regretted he wasn’t able to deck him the way a man would deck any low-life who threatened his daughter’s happiness. He watched the crowd, wondering if he’d been doing his jobs too long.

Copper. Spy. Both jobs cut you off from the common crowd; both turned you into an observer. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d just…been. Not been a copper, or a spy, or Sherlock’s watchdog, or Mycroft Holmes’ faithful hound. Even in his late marriage—which he did indeed lament—he’d long since stopped being. Instead he’d been performing. He’d tried to rouse applause with “Good Old Greg, Loyal Beyond Reason,” and had discovered his wife flinched away from the fantasy. The last thing she’d said before walking away from him to find a lawyer was that if she’d wanted to marry plastic she could have done as well with a store mannequin.

According to her, her PE teacher lover was at least “authentic.” Whatever that meant.

He’d been gauging his drink over the evening, determined to stay well under the limit. He didn’t think he wanted to deal with the embarrassment if he ended up dragged in on drunk and disorderly. He could afford the PND on his record and the 80£ to pay the ticket, but he didn’t think he could stand the smirk of the officers on court-day, or the mandatory moralizing from the judge about setting an example and his behavior being a poor reflection of the integrity of the fine men and women in service. So he’d stuck with porter and ginger beer shandies alternated with plain cola. By his count he was running about a half pint per hour of the real stuff, well under his limit, even four hours in.

The burning core of the party consisted of John and Mary, and, to Lestrade’s surprise, Sherlock and Janine. It was an interesting dynamic, really. He leaned against the heavy curve of the bar, watching the four. John and Mary held place of honor, seated at the head of their table. John kept popping up like a jack-in-the-box with a new toast to see out the old year and welcome in the new. Lestrade grinned as the man stood, just a bit wobbly, and raised his glass, roaring, “Here’s to the sick and the dying—the sick to keep me in business, the dying to keep Sherlock entertained!”

Sherlock, at least as far gone in drink, raised his own glass from where he stood holding up the wall of the pub. “To the infectious and the homicidal—long may they prosper.”

Janine, arm curled around Sherlock’s scant waist, smacked him, saying, “You two are shameless. To the quick and the dead—may the quick outrun you two, and the dead offer you not so much as a single mystery!”

Sherlock turned to scold her, brows kilting up in a mighty frown—but before he could scold she stretched up and kissed him—and whether he was drunk or seduced didn’t matter much after that, because either way he was obviously occupied. Lestrade laughed. The lad had come a long way, he thought. He turned and found himself watching Molly watching Sherlock and Janine in the pub mirror. He sighed, and glanced around, looking for her date.

No sign of him. Apparently gone with the little blonde he’d been chatting up.

Molly’s gaze shifted, and their eyes met in the deep plate of mirrored glass. They looked too old, he thought. Too knowing. Molly raised her glass to him in the mirror. He silently toasted her back—and felt his heart sink as she pushed away from the bar and drifted up the line until she could shimmy in to sit lean next to him. She said something—he couldn’t hear what. He gestured. She stood on tiptoe, leaning until she could shout in his ear. “Looks like we’re both alone, now.”

“Alone is nice,” he said, determined not to find himself latched into one of those “couples by necessity” that sometimes formed up after all the shining “popular people” had their pick, and the more independent “also rans” hurried off with likely new targets. The combination of Molly abandoned and him unwilling was unappealing at best. Wrist-slittingly horrible at worst. “If you’re alone it’s easier to make your escape.”

“What time is it?” she bellowed.

He slipped his mobile out of his pocket. “Half-past ‘leven,” he said.

She set her jaw. “I’m with the party till Big Ben,” she announced, determined.

He studied her, and thought sadly that she’d stand under the mistletoe at Christmas parties and hold out till midnight on New Years Eve hoping beyond hope that eventually Sherlock would kiss her, and he’d be the one to wake up like Sleeping Beauty, aware for the first time that he loved her…

Apparently his pity showed. She glowered, and tightened her lips. “I’m over him,” she snarled. They both fell silent, stunned by a single lie. She glanced fretfully away, then back, shouting up, “Don’t lecture.”

“I didn’t.”

She made a face. “Yeah. You did. You just didn’t use words.” She shot back what looked like a good portion of a scotch straight up. She grimaced as it burned its way down her throat. “I’m a big girl, Inspector. I can take care of myself.”

“I know,” he said. Another lie, of course—but they both ignored it, letting it go. Sometimes a lie was the only acceptable “truth” around. He was the last person to point out to her that she failed at least in part because she could not bring herself to love someone who could love her back—and compounded the problem by making it far too clear that she knew she was unworthy. A girl as pretty as she was—a woman as beautiful as she was—had to put in some serious effort to undo all her assets through social awkwardness and cringe-worthy apology. Molly announced to the world that she was addicted to the cruel, the cold, and the dysfunctional—and then mimed her conviction that she didn’t deserve to be more than a Sherlock junkie to begin with.

It wasn’t an appealing performance. But he should talk—he had proven a worse performer than she was. At least her worried, longing, lonely hunger was real—authentic.

Still, he dodged when her hand tried to tuck itself into the turn of his elbow. He liked her. He thought perhaps he might even love her, in the “good chums” sense. In spite of that, he could think of few things more disastrous than letting her grip his arm, cling to his good holiday jumper, tease him into getting a bit more drunk—drunk as she was—and play “happy couples” with her, no doubt ending up over at his for the night. The thought of the next morning burned all the libido out of his bloodstream, and the scant alcohol with it. He forced himself not to shudder at the jolt of terror that spiked through him, imagining Molly—dear, poor, beloved, dangerous, lonely Molly—padding out into his kitchen wearing one of his t-shirts as a nightgown. Her chipper façade; his; theirs.

“I think I’m fading,” he said, stepping away. “Getting old.” He ran his hand over his silver crop. “Just don’t have that old kick.” Every word let him ease another inch away, and another. He forced a smile—his most boyish and gormless, teeth flashing in the dim light. He caught Mary’s eye, and blew her a big kiss, then waved a vast, campy “bye-bye.”

She frowned—pouted—shook her platinum curls. No-no-no! She tapped a non-existent watch on her wrist. He risked shooting a panicked-horse glance at Molly, the whites of his eyes showing. She cocked her head, eyes pleading with him to accept the obvious, the perfect answer. After all—lonely Molly; lonely Lestrade. Why not make the most of it? After all, it was New Years Eve.

He just shook his head, blew her another kiss, and darted through the mob heading for the door.

Once out on the pavement he asked himself if he was being a bit of a fool. He walked down to the corner—far enough away to think, near enough he could go back in if he decided he’d made a mistake. He leaned against the worn, russet brick of the old Victorian building that housed the pub. He fished in his pockets until he found his cigarettes and lighter. He lit, sucked, put the lighter and pack away, then relaxed, taking the fag between his fingers and letting the smoke roll, slow and lazy, from softened lips. He closed his eyes, licked the smoke flavor from his own upper lip. He remembered other times.

Gawd, but he’d been young once. He remembered a previous New Year’s pub crawl, years before. It may even have come through this place when it had had another name, he thought. It probably had. He knew he’d played gigs here, back when he was still in school and trying to make a go of the band. Eyes shut, he smiled, thinking of too-tight jeans cut so low they barely stayed on his bum, shredded and tattered until they were more like straggles of yarn than solid denim. Band shirts. Hair in a steadily changing parade of colors. Safety-pin through one ear-lobe. God, had he ever got flack from the Science of Law profs who knew he wanted to be a copper. “Get a haircut, boy. Stop dressing like trash…”

It had been so long—but he could still recall the wild music in his blood, dancing on the floor at concerts. He could remember the mosh-pits.

The past might be another country, but it was one that felt closer, nearer, more alive than the present. He could feel the crush of the crowd, the hands on him as they moved like a single animal. He could remember kisses—mouth open, tongues twining, hot as hell kisses, and having no idea whose tongue was down his throat, no names, no voices, no idea if they were boys or girls, not caring either….

Fuck. He was still that punk lad—he was a gasp away from it. When did he start being so damned tame.

Maybe he should go back and see if Molly was asking the same sort of question.

He twitched, knowing the answer. He tried to imagine Moll in a mosh-pit, and failed. It didn’t matter if he moved himself back and back, artificially stripping the age from her face, the clothes that shouted “ordinary” from her body, looking for that neat little figure and some hint of the wild she kept trying to offer Sherlock. He ran hard into the certain knowledge that there had never been a wild Molly—the promise she kept making Sherlock was a lie, or a hope, or a plea that he turn to her and locate what she herself never had found: a tigress, worthy of his tiger.

Sherlock couldn’t give her that. Neither could Lestrade. It had to flow out of her own heart, answer her own jungle longings. No one could make it happen for her, no matter how sweet her dark eyes or how pleading her glances.

He sucked down more smoke, hugging his own arms. The people in the streets were beginning the mutter of time-checks that always happened as New Years approached. Is it now? Now? What about now? No—twenty minutes. Fifteen.

The phone in his pocket vibrated.

He drew it out, and twitched seeing the icon he recognized as Mycroft’s private number. He answered.

“Yeah?”

“You’re out late.”

“It’s New Years, you berk. ‘Course I’m out late. Theory is I’m partying wi’ your brother an’ his friends.”

“I was taught in school that theory seldom behaves as expected outside idealized circumstances. Frictionless environments, for example. I somehow doubt my brother’s idea of a New Years Eve matches yours.”

Lestrade remembered mosh-pits again, and sighed heavily. “Bit old for my own idea of New Years,” he said. “Not sure they’d catch me even if I jumped off the stage.”

Mycroft snorted. “Would you really want to go crowd-surfing? Now?”

His voice suggested that some glories one grew out of. Lestrade struggled, caught between the remembered heaven of the mob, and the equal certainty he’d hate it now. “You’re a bastard,” he said at last. “Can’t leave a man his memories.”

“I haven’t touched your memories. I merely suggested some pleasures might be more suited to your current status.”

“Which is?”

“Out on a street corner, smoking alone, avoiding your party.”

“How close is the CCTV camera,” he asked, resigned.

“Perhaps ten yards, but it’s new and in good shape, with an adjustable zoom.”

“Were you looking for me?”

There was silence, then Holmes said, in a voice almost as vulnerable as Molly’s, “Maybe. A little. One worries. A night out with Sherlock has so very many pitfalls.”

“You could have come out wi’ us. Daresay John and Mary invited you.”

“As it happens, no. They did not.”

Something in the man’s voice rang hollow. Lestrade drew in another long draw of smoke, then gusted it out.

“Ever been to a New Years party that wasn’t a professional obligation?” he asked.

Mycroft huffed. “I’ve been a professional since I was eighteen, Inspector. What do you think the answer is?”

“I think maybe you’ve only recently reached a level when you can ignore your bloody professional obligations. Why don’t you grab a jacket and join us?” When  silence fell, he tried again, amending his offer. “Why don’t you grab a jacket and come join me? We can meet on Vauxhall bridge and watch the fireworks at the Eye.”

After another lingering moment, Mycroft said, warily, “I suppose that’s not entirely out of the question.”

“Good. Meet you there. Grab one of those nice bottles I know you keep for fancy company. And a couple glasses.”

“And what are you contributing to this little tete-a-tete?”

“Will you accept me and a pack of cigarettes?” He felt in his pocket, and amended the comment to, “Me and a half-pack.”

Mycroft snorted in sudden amusement. “You do think I’m a cheap date, don’t you?”

“I think,” Lestrade said, then stopped, wary.

“Yes?”

“I think you’re as sodding lonely as I am tonight, or you wouldn’t have called.”

The silence hurt—it hurt, and bled, and cried in the night, pained contrast with the jostle and chatter of the crowd. After a moment Mycroft said in a worn, tired voice, “Do you prefer brandy or scotch?”

“Daresay they’re both so far above my budget I won’t recognize ‘em when I drink ‘em. Bring what you like. Meet you in fifteen minutes.”

He had just barely enough time if he walked fast, he thought, and heaved himself away from the wall, striding quickly along the pavement. The entire town seemed to be out, and he snaked between groups, couples, dodged past the rare singleton. Mostly it was groups—people like John and Mary’s group who’d come out to greet the new year together.

The air was damp—the almost clammy chill of a winter night with scattered rain. Dry enough that no one was worrying too much about it. He wasn’t the only one headed for the Vauxhall bridge. It would give a good view of the river and the fireworks scheduled to go off at the Eye. As he sloped across the bridge, he found himself laughing.

There he was—Mycroft Holmes. Prim, neat, as tidy as one of Rene Magritte’s neat city gentlemen falling from the sky in their classic overcoats, hats on their heads, umbrellas at hand. Mycroft lacked the hat, but otherwise he was perfect for the role. He looked dubiously up into the luminous dark bowl of the sky over London, clearly trying to decide the eternal Londoner’s question: umbrella up, or down?

“Oi,” Lestrade called, and waved…

Mycroft turned, and Big Ben began to ring. One. Two. Three. Four. Five…

For no good reason Lestrade began to lope, dodging and dashing, As he arrived, Mycroft smiled.

Eleven. Twelve.

The fireworks began.

A tiny, shy smile trembled on the corner of Mycroft’s mouth, and was gone. The younger man grabbed Lestrade’s elbow and turned him, gently, to lean on the rail and look up the river, to where the lights blossomed and cascaded, reflected on the black-satin waters of the Thames. The low roar of cheers came echoing over the water, matching the cheers of the others on the bridge. Mycroft shuffled his umbrella as he fetched out one glass from one pocket, one from another, and then the brandy bottle from some inner pocket in the lining of his overcoat.

“Here—hold these.” He shoved the glasses in Lestrade’s hands, then poured and put the bottle on the wide railing.

“Not afraid we’ll knock it into the river?”

“You may. I shan’t. And it’s not as though I haven’t got more where that came from.”

They stood, silent, watching the flame and glory.

“Something, ennit?” Lestrade finally husked.

“Beautiful.” There was something both soft and pensive in Mycroft’s voice.

Lestrade nodded, and began humming “Auld Acquaintance.” To his surprise, a moment later Mycroft joined in. His voice was a reedy, modest tenor, sweet and strong enough, but never likely to have been anything but a solid background singer, or the pillar of some little church choir.

Not surprisingly he knew all the lines. Lestrade was reduced to humming along, improvising harmonies.

When he was done, he turned to Lestrade, and held up his untouched glass. “To old friends,” he said softly. “Those lost…and those found.” He refused to meet Lestrade’s eyes, instead staring stubbornly at his own fingers, clutched tight to the glass.

Lestrade considered, then raised his own glass. He smiled. “Ching-ching, then.” He matched actions to words, tapping his glass against Mycroft’s. Then, throwing caution to the wind, he said, “Happy New Year, Mycroft. Isn’t this where we kiss?”

Mycroft sniffed, and looked back up the river, sipping his brandy gingerly. “Hardly, Inspector. Perhaps if we were involved…”

Lestrade chuckled, hearing the longing hidden in the prissy denial. “Aww…but it’s New Years.” He took the silence as encouragement, and leaned close, slipping one hand behind the narrow back, until their lapels brushed and Lestrade could feel the heat of two bodies together...

The kiss was light and hesitant. Cool and luminous. There...and gone, leaving a rush of delight.

He thought there was something appropriate about kissing by firework-light. One way or another you got your flash and your rush…

Mycroft didn’t move, which might have been discouraging….except for the fact that Mycroft didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t retreat. He stood and studied the last cascading spider-chrysanthemum fireworks shooting up, blooming, dropping glowing embers in the water below.

“Happy New Years, Mr. Holmes.”

“Mycroft. You…can call me Mycroft.”

Lestrade wondered what had brought the man out to him, here on the bridge, in the open, watching the shine and flash. How many people had died that year, to have added mournful sweetness to Mycroft’s rendition of “Auld Acquaintance”? Who had he lost? What had forced him to admit to himself he was lonely?

Lestrade decided he’d know. Someday. Given Mycroft, it might take awhile. But he could live with that, because kissing Mycroft Holmes was like crowd-surfing a mosh-pit, only more fun. He slid his hand into Mycroft’s overcoat pocket, finding the other man’s hand; tangling their fingers.

Mycroft held tight.

“Happy New Years, Greg.”

They watched till the lights were over, and then Lestrade said only one thing.

“Take me home, Mike. It’s time to welcome in the new year.”

He already knew 2016 was going to be very different than 2015.


End file.
